A Shadow of Myself

by Mike Phillips

  ‘No problem,’ Kofi said to George when he put the phone down. ‘As soon as he knows the time and place, he’ll make the arrangements.’

  ‘I think we’ll go and find Victor tonight,’ George replied.

  In the bedroom, he packed a bag and kissed Serge, who was sleeping soundly. Radka watched him moving around the room without expression.

  ‘We’ll talk when I get back,’ he told her, his tone apologetic. ‘But I must go tonight.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Radka said.

  George smiled at her.

  ‘You know me. All this will be over in a couple of days.’

  THIRTY

  ‘Let’s go out,’ Radka said to Joseph.

  She had drifted in and out of the room for most of the evening, without speaking, somehow communicating the sense that since she had no say in the events that were developing, she wished to ignore them altogether. Joseph had felt the same, like a spectator at the theatre. Later he had wanted to talk to Kofi alone, without Katya, and he was sure that his father had sensed this, but instead of staying with him in the sitting room the old man had announced that he was going to bed. Immediately, the couple had disappeared together without another comment, as if they’d been doing it all their lives. Joseph had sat alone watching television and trying to decide what to do, until the door opened and Radka appeared. Now, following her through the silent apartment he had the feeling that they were naughty children sneaking out after bedtime. As he closed the door behind them he clicked it shut with exaggerated care, hoping that no one could hear them leave.

  Neither of them cared where they were going. It was close to midnight and although there were still lines of cars around them, the traffic flowed freely. Once around the Zoo station she skirted the Tiergarten, heading for the illuminated heap of metal and glass which was the restored Reichstag.

  ‘I want to leave George,’ Radka said.

  Her words didn’t surprise Joseph, but he heard them with a sudden surge of excitement. At the same time he felt the taste of guilt behind it.

  ‘Have you told him?’

  She glanced quickly at him and away again.

  ‘Not directly. I don’t think he wanted to listen. He was thinking about this other business.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I told you before,’ she said. ‘I want to come to England. I can get work there.’

  ‘What about Serge?’

  ‘He’s a little boy. He’ll like it, and he’ll be safe.’

  She made the long circuit around the Reichstag. To his left Joseph could see the dark strip of land where the Wall had been. George and Radka had been part of what happened there. Perhaps, he thought, their separation would leave her with an area of emotional wasteland through which he could never venture. Gazing out at the landscape, he tried to imagine what it would be like living with Radka, seeing her every day. Lena flashed through his mind. What would he tell her?

  ‘Is this about us?’

  His heart beat faster when he asked the question. She shook her head quickly, but she didn’t reply, thinking about it.

  ‘I think I would leave anyway. Before it’s too late.’

  She was wearing a short black dress under her leather jacket. There was a split in the side of the skirt and the ends flopped back to show her thighs moving as she worked the pedals. Beneath the garish reflection of the street lamps her pale flesh glowed.

  ‘Everything about the world has changed since we met,’ she said. ‘And we have both changed with it. The problem is that we have changed in different directions. If he had not been a black man I would have left long ago. Sometimes I came close but I felt like a traitor.’ She laughed. ‘This is funny. I think that it is your fault, and Kofi. Before you came he needed me. For Serge we needed a kind of,’ she hesitated, ‘Überzeugung, what is that?’

  ‘Belief?’

  Joseph wasn’t sure, but she glanced at him, smiling.

  ‘Something more, but belief is okay. We needed belief in ourselves. We gave that to each other. When you came he didn’t need me for that. Valentin made him restless, but that was okay. When he found you he became a different man.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Joseph said.

  ‘Don’t be sorry.’ She smiled at him. ‘You opened the windows for me too. Now Serge has a grandfather and an uncle who are negroes. If I leave George I won’t be separating him from people like himself.’

  ‘Don’t say negroes,’ Joseph told her. ‘That’s the first thing to learn.’

  She drove through the Brandenberg Gate, turned right in front of the warren of ugly flats and headed back towards Kreuzberg.

  ‘How will Katya take it?’

  Radka smiled.

  ‘I don’t know, but she knows about such things. I think she’ll come to England. She won’t let your father escape a second time.’

  ‘It won’t be easy,’ Joseph said.

  Radka laughed.

  ‘It will be easier than this.’

  The apartment was still silent. In the sitting room the television set flickered. Radka took her jacket off and went to check on Serge. She was back immediately. ‘He’s asleep,’ she whispered. He started to put his arms round her, but she took his hand, turned round and led him across the corridor into George’s room.

  They sat on the floor, kissing again, their arms around each other, leaning back against the narrow bed which had belonged to her husband and in which her son had slept. It was over in a few minutes. Without saying a word, Radka got up, settled her skirt, kissed him on the cheek and went out, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Joseph woke early and went to stand at the windows, looking out into the street. He had told himself in the moment after he returned to consciousness that he would think about what was happening between himself and Radka. Instead he found himself reflecting dreamily about the sound of her voice, about the way her hair fell around her face, and about the touch of her fingers on his skin. Outside the window the glow of the city was fading and, without being aware that he was doing it, Joseph watched the colour coming back into the trees and the details emerging along the outlines of the street. He was so lost in his dreams that when he heard his father’s voice behind him he spun around, startled, as if abruptly roused from sleep.

  ‘I heard you last night,’ Kofi said without preamble.

  He had come into the room quietly, closing the door behind him, and now he was staring at Joseph sternly, a frown creasing his face.

  ‘We went for a drive,’ Joseph told him lamely.

  ‘I know what you were doing,’ Kofi cut in. ‘This is your brother’s wife. It’s the worst thing you can do.’

  ‘It just happened, Dad.’ Joseph felt like a child again, pinned beneath Kofi’s accusing gaze. As if disclaiming the role, he shrugged and turned away. ‘I’m getting out of here today anyway.’

  ‘That’s not an answer,’ Kofi said. He moved around so that he was looking into Joseph’s face again. ‘If this is just a quick fuck because you’re both nervous and lonely, that’s okay. Leave it alone, say nothing and forget it. If it’s more than that, you should do something about it.’

  Joseph felt a kind of despair. This was the sort of confrontation he had feared, if only because when it came to the moment of decision all he felt was confusion.

  ‘What can I do, Dad?’

  Kofi’s look softened. When Joseph spoke he reminded him of the child he had been, and he remembered also how unpredictably his own desires had driven him. He moved away from Joseph and sat down.

  ‘I don’t know, son.’ He chuckled involuntarily. ‘That’s life. First you fix the hole in the roof, and then you find dry rot in the floor. I don’t know what to tell you, except that the most dangerous enemy you can have is a brother.’

  After his conversation with Kofi, Joseph found it impossible to remain in the apartment, or to face Radka and Katya. He dressed quickly, pulling on the jeans and the sweater George had left as a replacement for his own. Then he left
, walking purposefully towards the bustle of the Bundesallee, retracing the path along which Radka had driven a couple of days before.

  The streets were beginning to take on the crowded, jostling appearance of rush hour, and Joseph felt safely anonymous. Walking through the hotel lobby he looked round furtively, going into the souvenir shop and out again to see whether he could spot anyone waiting for his arrival. It took a few minutes to be certain that no one was interested in his movements, but eventually he was satisfied.

  Upstairs in his room he got into his own clothes and lay on the bed watching the news. He had seen this channel, he realised, in every hotel room in every country to which he’d travelled recently. Hearing the familiar American accents he felt as if he was being greeted by old friends, even though the round-up of financial news and the details of business transactions held as little interest for him as if they’d been in another language.

  He must have drifted off, because he was dreaming about living in a strange house somewhere in London with Radka and Serge. The window at which he stood overlooked a huge garden where Serge was playing on a climbing frame. Suddenly the garden began filling up with oddly dressed people. They wore stovepipe hats, long jackets, stockings, and shoes with buckles on them. Guessing from the clothes that they belonged to some kind of cult, Joseph rushed down the stairs with the intention of bringing Serge into the safety of the house. Radka was by his side and together they each grabbed one of the boy’s hands. They had nearly got back to the house when a man, dressed like all the others, but carrying an automatic rifle, stepped from behind a bush and began to fire. Joseph, his hands outstretched, saw the bullets emerging from the end of the gun and threw himself in front of Radka and Serge, knowing, even as he did so, a moment of pure terror, because it was too late to save them from being hit. He screamed and woke up to the sound of gunfire. On the TV screen the camera was tracking slowly along a line of dead bodies. The telephone rang. It was Kofi.

  He was ringing, he said, to see whether Joseph was okay. Joseph told him he was fine.

  ‘Your brother was on the telephone today,’ Kofi said.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In Düsseldorf, I think, but I don’t know exactly where. I can give you the number of his mobile.’

  Joseph dialled the number and George answered on the third ring.

  ‘I want to see you,’ Joseph told him. ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘Sure.’ George’s accent was more pronounced on the telephone. ‘After the business is over we talk.’

  ‘No.’ In the moments between sleep and waking Joseph’s mind had settled on this. ‘I want to go home. Talking to you is the only thing that’s keeping me in this country. Besides, you don’t know what will happen tomorrow. We must speak today. I don’t want to put it off.’

  A few days ago he would never have spoken to George with such decision, but something had changed. It wasn’t merely that he wanted to talk about Radka. It was something to do with Kofi and how he felt about George. Watching his father with his brother he had the odd sense of never having existed for Kofi. Now it was as if George had gone to fight giants while he sat at home cowering among the women and children.

  ‘This is impossible. There’s too much happening.’

  ‘If we don’t talk,’ Joseph told him, ‘I’ll go now, and I’m not coming back.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ George said quickly. ‘Not on the telephone. Come to Düsseldorf. When you know your flight, call me.’

  He hung up immediately.

  THIRTY-ONE

  It was early evening by the time Joseph got out of the terminal at Düsseldorf. Following George’s instructions he walked through the car rental hall and stood on the approach road which led to the car park. In a few minutes a car drew up and the door swung open.

  ‘Get in,’ George called out.

  They drove into the city on a highway which looked like every other motorway, and for a moment Joseph had the strange feeling of not being quite sure which town he was approaching or in which part of the country it was situated.

  ‘Now I know that we’re brothers,’ George said. ‘This is like every other younger brother I’ve ever heard of, turning up at difficult times, always hanging around.’ He didn’t smile, and there was a curious edge to his manner which Joseph hadn’t seen before.

  The last streaks of sunlight had disappeared as they drove in from the airport and along the Königsallee the huge shop windows were illuminated, glittering with mannequins in self-conscious poses, but now that the stores and offices were closed the city centre seemed curiously empty, like an exhibition centre where someone had suddenly blown a whistle and sent everyone home for the night.

  George parked near a bridge over the canal which ran down the middle of the avenue and they walked through the old town, the Aldstadt, heading for the river.

  ‘It doesn’t look very old,’ Joseph said, looking around.

  It looked like one of those towns where the industrial quarter had outlived its relationship with the docks and wharves, and subsequently been converted into a beehive of curving cul-de-sacs, fountains, bars and restaurants. In a few minutes they had entered a wide pedestrian precinct, beyond which Joseph could see the lights reflected on water.

  ‘You want to talk about Radka,’ George said.

  He didn’t sound angry, but Joseph couldn’t reply for a few seconds, suppressing the desire to ask how George had guessed.

  ‘I telephoned and spoke to Kofi,’ George continued. ‘I wanted to know what you were after. Radka took the telephone. She said she was going to England with you.’ He paused. There had been a hint of a tremor in his voice. ‘I guess you’ve been fucking my wife.’

  Now he was looking at Joseph with an angry, challenging air.

  ‘It just happened.’

  ‘Ach, yes,’ George said. ‘You stumbled and fell on top of her. What a terrible accident.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Joseph asked him.

  George was silent for a while, his eyes intent on the sparkling surface of the water.

  ‘My doppelgänger,’ he said eventually. ‘You lived my life, you wear my clothes, you sleep in my bed, and now my wife.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Joseph told him. ‘Something happened between us.’

  ‘If you had been another man,’ George replied, ‘it would have been easier. But this is very confusing. If I had known you wanted to talk about Radka I would have said no. I don’t want to think about it right now.’

  ‘I want to come with you tomorrow,’ Joseph told him.

  As soon as he said it he knew that this was really why he had come.

  ‘You want to come tomorrow,’ George said slowly. He took his eyes off the river and looked round at Joseph. ‘You really want to be me, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It will be dangerous. You’re right. We don’t know what will happen.’

  ‘That’s why I want to come. Maybe I can help.’

  George laughed. He seemed genuinely amused.

  ‘That’s stupid. How can you help?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So why?’

  Joseph thought about it. He had acted on impulse in coming here. Now that he was facing George, his desire to be present when the exchange was made seemed whimsical and foolish. What he couldn’t say was that somewhere in his mind he felt a powerful sense of guilt. It had nothing to do with Radka. Instead, it was somehow connected with the fact that his life, when compared to his brother’s, had been so comfortable and free of risk. When the dog clamped its jaws round his leg in Gunther’s shop, he had been afraid, just as he was on the way to Potsdam, and if it had been required, he thought, he might well have betrayed his brother in order to make his escape. That was only one episode in his life, but George had lived with such choices from the time of his earliest childhood.

  There was no logic to it, Joseph knew, but if he returned to England without taking the chance to share his brother’s danger the
y would never be equals, or even friends. Liz, his former wife, would have called it macho bullshit. This was the sort of instinct, she said in moments of anger, that his African father must have passed on to him, even though he had told her repeatedly about his stubborn resistance to everything Kofi tried to teach.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he told George. ‘Maybe because we’re brothers, but we’re not. If we’re together at least one time when it’s important, perhaps it will be real.’

  George grinned.

  ‘You want to get killed for me? You want a brother so badly?’

  ‘No, not killed,’ Joseph said, ‘but if I got my leg chewed a little more I wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘It won’t make up for you being an arsehole,’ George told him.

  They met Valentin and Victor in a pizza restaurant next to a sex video store off the Haroldstrasse. The Russians shook hands with Joseph.

  ‘How’s your leg?’ Valentin asked, grinning at him as if remembering some comic episode.

  ‘Okay. I’m coming with you tomorrow.’

  Valentin raised his eyebrows and gave George a quizzical look.

  ‘Yes,’ George told him. ‘He can help.’

  Valentin translated for Victor, who replied with a burst of speech, which George interrupted.

  ‘No. He’s not coming for money. He doesn’t want anything. He’s my brother. That’s all.’

  Victor shrugged.

  ‘Okay.’

  After midnight they drove out of the city on the road to Neuss, then cut south off the highway to Mönchengladbach, towards Wegberg and Niederkrüchten. The road here led towards the Dutch border and it was a flat stretch on which the villages were few and far between, cutting straight through a vista of empty fields and scattered trees. The darkness enveloped them, seeming to close in round the lane of light cast by the headlamps. George pushed the car along the narrow road as if confident about where he was going. About an hour and a half out of Düsseldorf, he pulled up at a crossroads.

  ‘We’ll do it there,’ he announced pointing. Following the line of the headlamps Joseph saw a stretch of unlit tarmac. ‘It doesn’t go anywhere. Even during the day there’s no traffic.’